Book Summary

My Body answers the questions students have about their own bodies—both inside and outside. Sharply focused photographs show outside body parts like hair, ears, eyes, fingers, and toes. Colorful drawings show inside body parts like the brain, the lungs, the digestive system, and a skeleton doing a back bend.

Each page focuses on a part or function of the body, including hair and skin, bones, the brain, breathing, blood, the senses, and eating. Simple text explains the basics of the human body. Additional text provides fascinating facts like why our skin gets goose bumps or how food takes its winding journey through our digestive systems.

The clear text and bright photographs of the book combine to make this an engaging first information book. The accessible and appropriate writing is perfect for beginning readers while the photos and illustrations provide visual impact and information for all levels of learners.

Teaching the Book

My Body takes students on a fact-packed, guided tour of the human body. Its fun facts, bright pictures, and easy-to-read text make it perfect for brand-new readers. The book provides a springboard for class discussions about the human body, main idea and details, and science content-area vocabulary. Students will engage in activities that include playing brain games, creating healthy meals, and labeling body parts.

Theme Focus: Human Body
Comprehension Focus: Main Idea and Details
Language Focus: Science Content-Area Vocabulary

Get Ready to Read

Pre-Reading Activities

Inside or Outside the Body?

Play a game with students to engage their thinking about the inside and outside of the human body—which is an important beginning concept in the book. Tell students that you are going to name body parts. Ask them to say whether each body part is on the inside or the outside of their bodies. Consider drawing a T-chart labeled with “Inside” and “Outside” to record the correct responses.

Use this list of body parts for the game, alternating the words on the two lists.

End the game by asking students if they can name more body parts on either the inside or outside of their bodies.

Preview and Predict

Spend time with students on page 2, going over the explanation of how the book works. Point out the different types of text and photographs in the book and the kinds of information they provide.

Vocabulary

Science Content-Area Vocabulary

Tell students to watch for the following words as they read the book. Ask them to think about how the words connect to the photographs or illustrations and also how the words connect to the main idea of the text.

Use Resource #1: Vocabulary Cards and distribute copies to students.

• skeleton (p. 8)
• skull (p. 8)
• lungs (p. 12)
• oxygen (p. 12)
• veins (p. 14)
• arteries (p. 14)
• stomach (p. 22)
• intestine (p. 23)

Words to Know

Ask students to cut apart their vocabulary words on Resource #1. Then write the concepts below on chart paper or on a whiteboard inside circles:

• breathing
• bones
• blood
• eating

Say each vocabulary word and ask students to hold up the corresponding card. Then have them connect each word with one of the larger concepts on the chart paper or whiteboard. Ask students to explain the connection between the two words.

As You Read

Reading the Book

Read-Aloud

Read the book aloud with students following along with their eyes on the text. Direct students’ attention to photographs or illustrations to help them visualize and understand the body part being described. Wait until the second reading to do the recommended activities in the text.

Shared Reading

Reread the book, taking time to focus on the body part labels for the illustrations and the suggested activities. Ask students to read their copies at the same time; or, if they are able, encourage them to read the text aloud along with you.

Big Question: Critical Thinking

Ask students to think about this question as they read and be ready to answer it when they have finished the book. Write the question on chart paper or have students write it in their reading journals. What part of your body do you think is most important? Explain why.

Comprehension Focus

Identify Main Idea and Details

Explain to students that the book is organized into important ideas called main ideas. The main ideas are supported by smaller ideas called details. The details tell more about the main ideas and help you understand how the human body works.

Project pages 14–15 titled “Bones” onto a whiteboard or screen. Read the text on both pages aloud. Then model how to identify the main idea and details in the text, using a graphic organizer.

Model

First, I’ll ask: What is the most important idea? Is it that you have a leg bone called a femur? No, that’s not important enough and doesn’t include all the information on the page. This is the important big idea that everything is about: your bones keep your body parts together and help you move. I’ll write that in the center circle. What details support this main idea? I’ll write those around the main idea.

Main Idea: Your bones keep your body parts together and help you move.
Detail: Your skeleton is all your bones.
Detail: X-rays are photos of bones.
Detail: Muscles pull on bones to make you move.
Detail: Your head bone is the skull.

Use Resource #2: Identify Main Idea and Details for students to practice identifying main ideas and details. Pass out copies of the page and guide students to reread pages 24–25, “Fit and Healthy,” and fill out the graphic organizer to identify main ideas and details.

After You Read

Questions to Discuss

Lead students in a discussion of these focus story elements.

1. Human Body

Point to these body parts that are hidden under your skin: your brain, your heart, your lungs, your ribs. Can you feel any of them under your skin? (Sample answers: Students should point to their body parts. They can feel their ribs, feel their heart beating, and feel their lungs inflate with air.)

2. Main Idea and Details

Name a detail that tells more about this main idea: Eating food gives you energy. (Sample answers: Your teeth break up food; your stomach breaks down food; food you don’t need comes out as waste.)

3. Science Content-Area Vocabulary

Use the text and the photograph on page 20 to figure out the meaning of the term taste buds. (tiny bumps on your tongue that tell you what food tastes like.)

Questions to Share

Encourage students to share their responses with a partner or small group.

1. Text to Self

What is the most amazing fact that you learned in the book about your body? How does the book change your ideas about your body?

2. Text to World

Why is it so important that people eat healthy foods?

3. Text to Text

Do you like the way the text and photographs are arranged in this book? How do the photographs help you understand the information about your body?

Content Area Connections

Math

How Many Teeth?

Ask students to write a math word problem based on information in the book. Then have them exchange problems with a partner to answer. Example: A baby has 20 teeth, and an adult has 32 teeth. How many more teeth does an adult have than a baby?

Social Studies

Health Helpers

Discuss with students the different people in the community who help them when they are sick. Name the following people and ask
students to describe how they keep people healthy.

• nurse
• doctor
• ambulance driver
• dentist
• eye doctor
• pharmacist

Science

Train Your Brain

Have students do the activity on page 6 or create a similar one with words or pictures. Give them several opportunities to improve their memory. Ask students to share any “memory tricks” they used.

Health

Three Healthy Meals

Ask students to draw three plates and label them breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Then ask them to draw pictures of healthy food they would like to have for each of the three meals.

Extension Activities

Reading/Writing Connection

My Five Senses

Use the questions on page 16 to prompt students as they write a paragraph about their five senses. Ask students to:

1. Write a topic sentence, or main idea, about the five senses.
2. Write sentences to answer the questions on page 16.
3. Write a concluding sentence that explains which of the five senses is their favorite and why.

Don't Forget the Big Question

Critical Thinking

Give each student an opportunity to answer the big question. Encourage students to support their answers with details and evidence from the text. Tell them there is no one right answer. What part of your body do you think is most important? Explain why.

Big Activity

My Body Parts

Tell students that they will show what they learned by labeling a picture with the names of the body parts. Make copies of the printable Big Activity: My Body Parts and distribute to students. Read the directions and answer questions to clarify the activity. After students finish, encourage them to share their labels and also fill in labels on a large body outline that you can project on the whiteboard.

Storia Enrichments

This Storia e-book has the following enrichments to enhance students’ comprehension of the book.
Picture Starter

• Touch the Page
• Video (3)
• Sequencing
• Word Search
• Scratch and See
• Multiple Choice Pictures
• Word Match
• Jigsaw Puzzle

About the Author

Andrea Pinnington is a writer and editor of books for children, specializing in non-fiction books for the youngest readers. Her books cover a range of subjects from animals to astronauts and puppies to pirates, as well as children’s craft and activity books.

© 2012 SI ALL RIGHTS RESERVED